Configure your OKR rules in Ally.io

Ally.io understands every business has its own set of processes and lets you configure and create your own OKR rules to fit your business needs.

To customize your OKR model,

Navigate to the sidebar and click on Admin to land in the Admin Dashboard and select the OKR Model Configuration tab.
You can now define how your Objectives, Key Results, and Projects should be in the respective section.

Define objectives:

The objectives section comes with two main options that let you decide what objectives should be in Ally. You can choose to have objectives that are strictly aspirational that have measurable key results or have objectives and key results that are both measurable and can be used interchangeably. Once you choose how you want to define your objective, Ally.io lists a subset of customization options that let you further configure nested objectives and contribution rules.

Objectives and key results can be used interchangeably

Select this if you don’t have any hard and fast rules on what objectives and key results are. This option works best if your organization aligns itself around people and metrics and if you emphasize cascading goals top-down. By selecting this option, your key results at one level become objectives for the next level. Your key results can either record progress from 0% to 100% or have a KPI metric.

For example, you have a company-level objective “Drive 3X ARR growth in 2021” whose key results are owned by different teams. These key results now become top-level objectives for each of the departments and they, in turn, add a set of key results to drive this objective. Select this option if you follow this typical waterfall approach of cascading your objectives and key results to drive progress.

Objectives are always aspirational, key results are always measurable

Select this option if you are more inclined towards the Classic style of doing OKRs and have clearly defined rules on what an objective is and what a key result is. Your objectives will record progress from 0% to 100% and progress will by default be rolled up from key results or you can choose to update progress manually. Your key results will be strictly measurable and will have a metric associated with them.

Once you define your objectives to be aspirational and key results to be measurable, you will find a subsequent set of options shown below:

Allow objectives to be nested under key results

You can decide if you’d like to nest your objectives under key results. Enable this option when your organization often defines metrics to drive that are large enough in scope to require a set of objectives under it.

Note: This option will not be available if you have selected the “Objectives and key results can be used interchangeably” option to define your objectives, because objectives and key results mean the same. Once this option is selected and saved, existing OKRs and Projects will remain untouched, and only newly created OKRs can have objectives nested under key results.

Block objectives from ever contributing to the progress of their parent

A child objective (objective nested under an objective) does not contribute to the progress of it’s parent by default. In scenarios, where you want the child objective to contribute to the parent’s progress, users will be able to edit the configuration rules and allow contribution.

Enable this option, if you never want child objectives in your organization to contribute to the progress of their parents. Users will never be able to override and edit the contribution settings.

Note: Existing objectives that are already contributing to their parents will remain untouched. If you edit such objectives, the only option allowed would be to set the contribution to 0.

Define key results:

Allow key results to be nested under key results

Select this option if your organization often breaks down a key result’s metrics into parts.

Define projects:

The projects section covers project enablement, alignment and contribution options.

Enable projects

Projects are the outputs delivered by your organization's execution, whereas the key results are "outcomes".

Enable this option if you:

consider projects as a set of initiatives that help us drive an outcome.
want to clearly differentiate outcomes and outputs.

Enabling this option will enable the rest of the other setting specifications. Enabling this option will enable the rest of the following setting specifications.

Enable projects for specific users
Select this checkbox if you want a few users in your organization to try out the projects feature before you roll it out more broadly. Only these users will be able to add projects. The projects created by these users will be visible to everyone. Search and select the list of users you’d want to enable projects for and save.

Allow projects to be nested under key results
Select this option if you want users to be able to create projects focused on moving a single metric rather than the overall objective.

Define how projects should contribute
Select how projects should contribute to the progress of its parent.
Decide from:
- Projects contribute to the progress of their parent by default
- Projects do not contribute to the progress of their parent by default
- Block projects from ever contributing to the progress of their parent

Rename projects
Define what you want projects to be called. You can rename the default label and call projects as Initiatives, Tactics, or anything else and this will be reflected across Ally.

Saving your OKR Model Configuration Settings

Click 'Save' once you've chosen the settings that define your objectives, key results, and projects. The changes will take effect once you click on 'Yes, Switch' in the confirmation pop-up.

Note: Existing OKRs and Projects will remain untouched. The OKR model changes will be applied only to OKRs and Projects that get created after the new settings are saved.